by Karen Miller
Nix’s indrawn breath was loud in the hushed chamber. “Your Majesty! Such interference would violate every—”
“Nix.” The pother flinched. Gar released Durm’s quiet hand and stood. “I have all solemn respect for your calling, you know that. But I am king of a curious country. One whose balance may be disturbed more easily than any man can know. If these past weeks have taught me anything of kingship it’s that there’s no sacrifice too great it can’t be made. No principle too inviolate it can’t be slain in the service of the greater good. I have learned that there’s theory and then there’s practice, and a king who can’t place pragmatism above all the other virtues is a king unworthy of his crown. I need to speak with Durm. Can you make that happen?”
The room was cool, but a bead of sweat trickled down Nix’s cheek. In his face, a terrible struggle. “Your Majesty—I can try. If you can swear to me on the most holy thing you know there is truly no other way.”
“Then on the stilled hearts of my family, I swear it.”
Nix slumped and a deeply sorrowing sigh escaped him. “There is an herbal paste which should achieve your desired outcome. It will take me a moment to prepare.”
“Go, then,” Gar said, and sat again. “Durm and I will be waiting.”
Nix departed, the chamber door closing softly behind him. Gar recaptured Durm’s fingers with his own and squeezed. “I know you approve,” he said, trying to smile. “All my life you’ve despaired of my softness. My easily bruised emotions. You should be proud now, old friend. Old enemy. For what could be more ruthless than taking a dying man by the heels and dragging him backwards from the brink?”
Only the fractional rise and fall of Durm’s chest betrayed his fragile hold on life. Not by so much as a flicker of his eyelid did he show that he could hear or feel a presence by his side. Gar let go of the dying man’s hand and pressed hard fingertips to his eyes. His head was aching. It always ached, these days. His head ... his heart...
Behind him the chamber door opened again. Closed. Nix padded to the bedside, a small mortar in one hand. A stinging smell, sharp like the depths of winter and acrid as smoke, burned the air.
“I dare not use too much of this,” Nix cautioned as he scooped a little of the stimulant onto the tip of a tiny wooden spatula and smeared it into the portal of Durm’s left nostril. “I wish I dared not use it at all.” He flicked a glance over his shoulder; in it Gar saw concern. Anger. The bitterness of necessity.
“You use it at my bidding,” he said, gently. “There is no blame attached to you, Nix.”
“If I. were a knife in your fist, perhaps,” retorted Nix. Now he was smearing more of the blue paste against the mucous membranes of Durm’s lips and gums. “But I’m flesh, not steel, and I have a mind of my own and a conscience I must answer to.” He hesitated. “Don’t burden it with more than is necessary, Your Majesty.”
Gar let his gaze ice over. “Rest assured, Royal Pother, that whatever your burdens they are minuscule compared to mine.”
Rebuked, Nix dropped his gaze to the floor for a moment, then looked up again. “If the stimulant works at all, and I don’t guarantee it will, you’ll see a change in the next few minutes. If he does rouse then for pity’s sake ask your questions quickly, don’t press him further than he seems able to go and spare him as soon as you can.”
“I will,” he said. “Now go. Bolt the door behind you, and seal the chamber against sound.” Seeing the surprise in Nix’s eyes he added, “It’s a question of solemn secrecy and the need to husband my powers for the WeatherWorking. I would not spend them except in that service.”
Nix bowed. “Your Majesty.” With a lingering, potherly look at Durm, he withdrew.
It felt as though centuries passed before Durm showed any response to Nix’s stinking concoction. His shallow breathing deepened. His fingers twitched. His head shifted on the pillow. Heart pounding, Gar leaned forward.
“Durm,” he whispered. “Durm, can you hear me?”
The faintest of moans, little more than a sigh. A gathering frown in the scarred face. A spindle of spittle, oozing from the corner of his lips. Beneath the translucent eyelids, a turgid roll of eye.
“Durm,” he whispered again, more insistently. “Please?”
Now the moaning sigh became a groan, and Durm’s chest rose and fell more vigorously. In his formless face surfaced some echo of the personality housed within his failing body. A grunt. A snuffling snort. Blue mucus oozed and bubbled from his nostril and over his parting lips.
“Durm!”
Durm’s eyelids lifted, barely. His slitted gaze dragged through the air as though burdened by invisible anchors. “Gar...”
He pulled the armchair closer. Leaned further in till his lips were almost touching Durm’s ear. On the tip of his tongue was the question he’d come here to ask.
Instead he asked something else, because not to ask it was impossible. He’d never have another chance. When Durm died his last hope of recovery, of keeping his kingdom, would die along with him.
“My magic’s failed, Durm. Is there a cure? An answer in your library, or Barl’s? Do you know a way to save me?”
In a gravelled whisper Durm said, “No.”
The word was like a sword thrust in his side. His breath hitched. His eyes burned. “Are you certain?”
“No cure.”
“Then who can I crown instead of Gonroyd? I need a different heir!”
Durm coughed again, his face gathering tight in a monstrous frown. His bed began to tremble gently, echoing the larger tremors now racking his reunited limbs. He opened his mouth and screamed.
“No!” cried Gar, and leapt up to press Durm’s shoulders to the mattress. “Not yet! Hold on, Durm! I need you!”
Another gargling scream.
He captured Durm’s thrashing head between his hands and forced the maddened eyes to meet his own, even as the wasted, frantic body of his father’s best friend struggled and writhed.
“Help me, Durm! Help me!”
“The diary!” Durm shouted, bucking and twisting beneath his blankets. “Barl’s diary! Your only hope!”
Heart pounding, he leaned closer still, willing the dying man to hear him. “Barl left a diary! When? Where? Do you have it? Durm!”
A terrible convulsion shook the Master Magician. Blue froth bubbled between his lips and his eyes rolled back in his head. Panting, Gar pulled juddering Durm into a desperate embrace.
“Did you tell my father about it? Did you give it to him?”
A terrible sound, then. Durm was laughing. Wasting the last of his life. “He doesn’t know... I hid it...”
“Oh, Durm ... Durm!” Dying or not, Gar could have strangled him. “Where is it now? Where will I find it? Why is it our only hope? Hope for what? For me? Can it give me back my magic?”
Tickling his skin, a fading breath. In his ear, a failing whisper. “Conroyd ... beware Conroyd ...”
The convulsions ceased. He lowered Durm gently to the mattress, the pillows, and looked into the waxen face. “I know,” he said sadly. “I do. Durm... where is the diary?”
Hollowed, emptied, Durm parted blue-stained lips. “Borne ... forgive me. I couldn’t stop him ...”
He cupped his hand to Durm’s fleshless face. “You’re forgiven. Durm, where have you hidden the diary?”
But it was useless, and he knew it. He wept, despairing, even as Durm’s chest rattled with air like a child’s toy. The light behind the half-lidded eyes dwindled. Tears brimmed. Even as he watched, the final dregs of color drained from Durm’s cheeks, leaving them like living parchment, and his eyelids closed completely. Whatever strength Nix’s stimulant paste had lent him it was failing fast.
“Never mind, Durm,” he said softly. “It’s all right. Go in peace, and Barl’s great grace attend you.”
Some dark shadow flitted over Durm’s waxy face. “Barl,” he murmured. “The bitch, the slut, the treacherous whore.” His eyelids fluttered. Lifted. Revealed confused and cl
ouding eyes. The rattle was in his throat now; an ominous portent. “Gar...”
A butterfly’s shout would sound louder.
“Hush,” he whispered. “I’m here. I’m with you.”
The vivid personality behind Durm’s eyes was utterly defeated. “Forgive me ...”
He kissed Durm’s cold and clammy forehead. “For everything.”
Another inwards breath, rattling. A long pause. A bubbling exhalation. Then nothing.
Gar called Nix into the room. “He’s gone. Do what is needful, but make no public mention of his passing. Bind your staff to strictest secrecy on pain of dire retribution. I will announce this disaster in my own good time.”
Nix bowed, his expression frozen. “Yes, Your Majesty. If I may ask—did you get what you needed, before . .. ?”
“No,” he said, after a moment. “No, I did not.”
Outside the palace, the day continued cool and bright, just as Asher had ordered. Scarlet warblers whistled in the trees. Squirrels scampered. The Wall soared clean and bright and golden into the cloudless sky.
Carefully, so carefully, he made his way back to the Tower. Asher needed that new Weather Schedule. He could do that at least. And when it was done, he would look for Barl’s diary ... for all the good it could do them.
———
Lady Marnagh pounced on Asher the moment he walked through the rear doors of Justice Hall. With his ears still ringing from the shouting, the shrieking, the screaming of his name—Asher! Asher! Asher!—and his lips tingling from Dathne’s last swift kiss, he dived into the Hall’s shadowed silence like a parched man finding water.
Marnagh escorted him up to the private screened Law Giver’s gallery. Robed him in the Law Giver’s crimson robe. Settled the Law Giver’s crown firmly on his head. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see the thunderbolt. Still resistant to all if implied.
Then she guided him onto the magical platform that would deliver him to the madness waiting below. The minute his shiny black boots became visible the restless ocean of sound filling the Hall crashed into waves of fresh and unstinting acclaim. Shouts, applause, cries of “Praise Barl” and “Bless our Administrator” dinned his ears as the platform drifted downwards.
He opened his eyes and, for a heartbeat, let his mouth hang open. The hall was packed. Mostly with Olken, but there were some Doranen mixed in there as well. Conroyd bloody Jarralt, hoping he’d make some terrible mistake most like. Olken members of the General Council. Conroyd Jarralt’s cronies, Daltrie, Sorvold, Hafar and Boqur, the ones who’d been with him that night at Salbert’s Eyrie. Even Holze was there. The cleric saw him staring and smiled, his eyes watchful, his expression ambiguous.
Dathne had squashed herself into a front pew between Darran and Willer. She waved at him, just a little.
He fought the temptation to wave back.
There was Indigo bloody Glospottle, trouble’s architect, tall thin streak of piss that he was. His face was the color of piss, too, as though finally, finally, he realized what he’d got them all into. On the other side of the aisle from him the Dyers’ Guild meister, red-faced and bloated with consequence, not looking at all happy about being here.
That’d teach him to be greedy.
Amongst the clamoring Olken faces were dozens more he recognized. Cluny, and the rest of the house staff from the Tower. Some of the palace staff he was coming to know. Pellen Orrick, grinning like a loon, the bastard, and waggling his eyebrows like this was funny. Lads from the guardhouse, off-duty and mashed in shoulder to shoulder to watch their old drinking mate make a ninny of himself. Guild meisters and mistresses, some of whom he’d offended and others just mildly irritated. Many, though, who thought of him as friend. Aleman Derrig and his daughters. Folks he knew to smile at in the street, that he’d never met but who knew him because he was the Olken Administrator, and important.
No Matt, of course. He was sorry for that. Sorry for losing his temper, too. But he’d put it right soon enough. Go all the way down to the Dingles if he had to and set the matter straight. Long silences could easily get filled with calamity ... and one Jed in a lifetime was enough.
The platform came to a stop, bumping him free of memory. The tumult of welcome intensified, vibrating his bones. He almost turned tail and ran. But then he saw Lady Marnagh at her Recording Table, glaring daggers at him from behind a polite mask. Reading his mind. He took a deep and gulping breath then stepped onto the Law Giver’s dais. Sat in the Law Giver’s chair and struck the golden bell three times.
He might as well have pissed into the wind.
So he stood, raising his arms for silence. His Olken audience only shouted louder. He waved his arms, burningly aware of Conroyd Jarralt, of Barlsman Holze, the Doranen General Councilors. Of what this looked like to them and how easily they might take it out on Gar. On him. On the Olken in general.
He looked at the nearest City guard, pulling a mad face. Stifling a grin, John rapped his pike-butt on the tiled floor in warning. The other guards joined in.
His Olken admirers, drat ‘em, ignored the summons to silence.
On a deep breath, his heart pounding, he jumped onto the Law Giver’s red velvet seat. “Sink me bloody sideways!” he bellowed. The hall’s magicked acoustics amplified the shout, delivering it sharply to every attendant ear. “Would you bloody well pipe down!”
Laughter. A few shocked gasps. A tail-ending of “Praise Barls” and “Hail Ashers.” Then a ragged hush descended. He leapt lightly off the chair.
“Right,” he said, tugging at his weskit through his crimson velvet robe. “So now that’s sorted, let’s get down to business.”
Indigo Glospottle spoke first. Although most of the City by now must have known the bones of his complaint, given how his tongue wagged at every opportunity, even so the Olken in the audience hung on his every word as though they sat in the theater, not Justice Hall, and this was a grand fine entertainment laid on for then amusement.
Asher supposed, swallowing a grin, that in many ways it was. The crimson velvet chair was comfortable. He sat back, chin sunk in one hand, and tried to look as though Glospottle’s groanings were exciting news to him.
Eventually, after much huffing and puffing and hand-waving, Glospottle’s tale of hard-done-by and persecution dribbled to an end. Which meant that Guild Meister Roddle rose ponderously to his feet and argued in the opposite.
Ten minutes later, Asher had had enough of the overdressed dyer’s droning. He raised a warning hand. “Wait a minute. Just. . . wait. Seems to me this is all startin’ to turn a bit hedgehog.”
Roddle blinked. “Hedgehog?”
“Uncomfortably prickly,” he explained, as yet another titter of amusement rippled round the crowded hall. He ignored it. “Now, Meister Roddle—”
“Guild Meister Roddle.”
“For now,” he said, and bared his teeth. “Provided you don’t fall into the habit of interruptin’ me. Now I just spent the last two days reading your guild’s rules and statutes and chartered articles and what-not and I don’t recall seein’ mentioned anywhere as to how new techniques belong to the guild and not the man or woman who invented ‘em.”
Roddle cleared his throat. “The tradition is long-standing, sir,” he said stiffly. “The actual amendment to ratified guild charters is more recent.”
Asher narrowed his eyes. “How recent?”
Roddle’s face flushed a dark purplish red. “This morning.”
The spectators muttered loudly as Indigo Glospottle leapt to his feet. “That’s outrageous]”
“Shut up, Indigo!” said Asher. “You’ve had your say.” Indigo subsided, spluttering. “This morning, eh?” he continued. “That smacks to me of cheating, Roddle. Did you see the whacking big sword on the outside of the building as you came in? You recall Barl’s opinion on little things like cheating?”
“We are not cheating*.” the guild meister protested. “Indigo Glospottle is a thief, sir, he steals from his guild brethren, he—”
>
“And you can shut up too,” he said, and waved his hand in dismissal. “Reckon I’ve heard all I need to. It’s my turn to flap lips now.” From the corner of his eye he caught the look on Lady Marnagh’s face as she dutifully supervised the magical recording of the proceedings. He suspected she wasn’t sure whether to hit him or hug him.
“Sir,” said Roddle faintly, and resumed his seat. The spectators held their breaths and sat forward, waiting.
Asher slid out of his chair, stepped off the dais and began pacing back and forth the full width of the hall. Against every and all expectation he was enjoying himself.
“Our kingdom’s a place of rules and regulations. We’ve got ourselves so used to ‘em I reckon we’ve near forgot how many there are. Rules for marriage and for bearing children. Rules for schooling and religion. Where we work, how we work, what we work towards. What jobs the Olkens do, what jobs the Doranen do. Who uses magic and who doesn’t.” His voice dried up momentarily and he had to wet his lips before he could continue. He hadn’t meant to say that last bit. “Any road. Lots of rules. And then we got the guilds. The guilds are important. They enforce a lot of our rules. Help keep this kingdom runnin’ sweet and smooth just as much as any WeatherWorker ever did. Without the guilds binding us all together, could be We’d find ourselves in a right mucky mess.”
A murmur from the audience. Exchanged glances between Jarralt and his cronies. Holze, nodding in slow agreement. Pellen Orrick, his eyebrows lifted, watching everything and everyone with his melted-ice eyes.
“And for a long, long time now,” Asher continued, still pacing, “nowt much has changed around here. The way we brew beer. The way we milk cows. The way we grow cotton and card wool. Harvest grapes. Raise horses. I reckon turn the clock back a hundred years, two hundred, and no one’d notice the difference.” He stopped pacing then, right in front of a transfixed Indigo Glospottle, and shook his head. “But then along comes a man with an idea. An idea for bluer blues and redder reds, and the next thing you know the apple cart’s turned arse over eyeballs and there’s pippins all over the street. And here’s me, s’posed to be pickin’ ‘em up without a one bein’ bruised.” Lifting his gaze, he swept it over the packed Hall. “Sorry, folks. That ain’t about to happen. Nobody upsets an apple cart without there bein’ a few apples spoiled.”